I started my first Kickstarter project today for a book following my journey across North America last year.I shoot on a Mamiya 645 and a Fotoman 617 camera so you may be interested to check it out or even buy a copy.It will be interesting to see if it works out and can be a viable solution for a photographer looking to build a career in this changing photography landscape.

Likely too late in the process to offer some points to consider but,what the hell,I'll throw them out there anyways.

I think a three hundred page monolith is too ambitious for a project of this sort and duration.Including too many average images,oftentimes, undermines the strong ones and takes thewhole project down a notch.I can't think of any of the established 'masters' who have a book with this page count.

Secondly, I think it would be useful to present a few of the road stories you intend to include in the book.

Thanks, why is 300 pages too ambitious? And what duration are you talking about exactly? I could have made the book many more pages and had to lose many pictures to keep it at 300. In 30'000 miles you can take a lot of pictures. I have bought photography books and think short ones can be looked through too quickly. Something at 300 pages can be looked over time and time again.Are you saying you think there are lots of average images from my website/video or assuming there would be at this size? Because I don't consider any of them average and had many people look and get rid or ones that weren't good enough.

These are great images, and the 3:1 format is exciting, great for large prints.

On the technical side I do react to that some images look a bit dark and shadow-crushed though, such as "Whisper of a Glacier", "Whisper" and "Lake of Serenity". Maybe it is your artistic intention, or a side-effect of using film (slide film?), or some issue with digitizing, are you using a drum scanner or not? I'm not saying it is necessarily wrong though, just something I reacted to. We all have our different tastes in post-processing.

No,I don't think the images (those that I've seen) are average but by the same measure don't findthem particularly unique enough to distinguish them from the army of photographers who havegone before you.

Your images (again,only those I've seen) depict beautiful places in beautiful conditions but,byand large, from established viewpoints that are sort of expected.

Your particular 'hook' is that your image collection is built from one continuous trip and toa lesser degree the 3:1 format which few shoot.Supported with beautiful images should be a recipe for success.

P.S.-am still inclined to feel 300 pages is on the heavy side,though,regardless of the number of good images you have. But, that's just my opinion and is not formed from any intimate knowledge of book publishing

Only about 20 images from the 80 on my site are from established viewpoints, yes more are from established locations but they are not specific viewpoints that hordes of people have the same shot of, one of my main aims is to try take pictures of places that are different to the norm if at all possible. Which is hard for places like new york but I think I achieved it, whilst lots of people have taken from that viewpoint I feel mine is one of the most unique which is what I aimed to do. Hell even Peter Lik couldn't get a descent shot from the location, His recent New York collection are some of the worst pictures I have seen, unique locations of not.My Toronto shot is also very unique and I have yet to find anything similar.There are certain locations I refuse to shoot, say Zabriskie Point in death valley, Tunnel View in Yosemite or the famous view of Moraine lake you have, even if it is black and white. And I will never shoot a location when someone else is there at the same time so at least that moment is unique to me. But you have to realise in todays world most locations have been shot so unless you shoot somewhere boring that no on recognises, or head to the Congo. Then someone else will have taken a shot from the same spot, it's just what you choose to do at that time, which at a minimum is different framing.

The other thing I like about 300 pages is that is has a synergy with 30,000 miles. But also I have a love for big books, just like I love 3 hour movies. I think it's because if you can make that work and not be boring then it is something great to own or see. We will see how much of a recipe for success it is though, everybody I talk to loves the concept and my work but getting the backing is the hard thing!

there is one problem i always had with this forum: most of the discussions on images are extremely technique related.the fact that i might be able to recognize the color of a butterfly flying around 2 kilometers awayseems to be more relevant than the question if the image or the series has a unique approach,stands out compared to other works dealing with similar topics.and in your case its exactly what i am missing. the images seem to be technically perfect and without doubtthey are somehow beautiful but looking at them i always get the feeling that i have seen them already.it seems dozens of other skilled photographers have already done pretty much the same thing: photographing the same places, using similar technique, similar aesthetics and content wise spreading pretty much the same message.in my opinion the only reason to do a book - which means tons of work and a certain financial risk - is if i'm convinced that i can add something to the already well known.you are pretty selfconfident - and you should be - but that's the question you have to ask yourself.and by the way, to proof whether i'm not just bashing but applying the same standarts to my own work, have a look at my book that will be out in 3-4 weeks.

You can't really make anything groundbreaking unique these days, especially in the landscape genre. You can always find someone that has made similar pictures before you. What you still can make somewhat unique is when you look at a complete body of work. One single image says nothing about the artist, it's more about which images he/she has chosen to present in a larger body of work.

However, I doubt that people buying these books are art critics. Commercially successful photographers are not necessarily making the most unique things. There is a need of a certain level of visual quality, but the rest is about being able to navigate in the market.

The artistic quality of the images I think is the least difficult challenge to overcome for a commercial book project. For example I'd say the artistic quality of Peter Lik's images are in a large amount of cases not very good. But he does not have problems selling.

Note that this is the "Equipment and Techniques / Medium format ..." forum, so naturally we are much interested in technique here. However, there is a "The Art of Photography / User critique" forum on this site too.

Yes I shoot on provia slide film which gives the deep shadows but this is an effect I like so yes it's my intention, I'm not a fan of HDR at all, but I also do not crush my images in post.

I think film still has a strong "brand" among the general public, so it can be an advantage. Many still believe that film is a more "honest" medium. However, the public is today also used to the quality of digital images. I've noted that in some cases people not familiar with photography consider a film shot be "over-processed" due to the contrasty look and saturated colors that you get from slide film, not knowing that they look at a straight scanned slide film shot.

Making images look their best in prints is not entirely trivial. I have no experience from printing books, but I've done some C-printing and I spend many hours per image to get it just right. I can spend 40 hours on one image making several test prints in the process. With 300 images that would be 6 years full-time :-) so obviously you need a more efficient process, not doing much per image, which I guess is your intention. You don't need many hours overhead per image before it becomes a huge problem though because of the large amount. So I'd surely look into how much the processing time/cost per image is to get it from film into the book. If you would use a professional drum scan service it could be £100 just for the scan.